The NXP EdgeLock A30, smaller than a grain of rice, protects digital data from tampering, aiding future EU digital product passport requirements.
heise.de, Jan. 23, 2025 –
The RISC-V microcontroller NXP EdgeLock A30 is an "authenticator" that stores digital information and protects it from unauthorized modification. Among other things, the A30 is intended for use as a Digital Product Passport (DPP), as required by the EU for many electronic products in the future, such as batteries, toys and smartphones.
To enable manufacturers to install the DPP in very small devices, NXP also offers it in a particularly tiny WLCSP package with edge lengths of 1.47 and 1.645 millimeters. WLCSP stands for Wafer Level Chip Scale Packaging; the A30 is also available in other packages such as HVQFN20.
RISC-V inside
The NXP EdgeLock A30 Secure Authenticator communicates via I2C bus. It contains a RISC-V core, 16 kilobytes of non-volatile memory and function blocks for cryptographic algorithms such as AES, ECDSA, HMAC and SHA.
The chip is certified to Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level CC EAL 6+.
DPP mandatory
From 2027, the DPP will be mandatory for the first product categories. Devices in these categories without a DPP may then no longer be sold in the EU or imported into the EU.
Among other things, the DPP is intended to firmly link information on the safety, repair and recycling of appliances to them. In this way, the DPP should also help to avoid electronic waste...